5 ms·

Conservative would be less use of law and government, liberal would be more.

cyberpunk 6y ago
Ah you mean liberal as in amount, not liberal as in more permissive. That was confusing, cheers.
quietbritishjim 6y ago
> liberal would be more [use of law and government] That is not what liberal means. In fact the confusing setence in your previous comment has basically the opposite meaning than you meant: more liberal libel laws would be less strict.
- wayneftw 6y ago
  It wasn't my comment, but there is more than one meaning for the word liberal. [0] I was going with adjective 2. relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. I took "more liberal" to mean "more left" as in the political spectrum of Left vs Right, Liberal vs Conservative because that's the only definition that really fits the context of the sentence... Despite the fact that Liberalism has much more to do with Liberty than liberal use of government, Liberals today certainly want to use the government liberally to make new laws for solving any small discomfort. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=define+liberal https://www.google.com/search?q=define+liberal
  - quietbritishjim 6y ago
    Maybe there's partly a cultural difference. Here in the UK, "liberal" mean would still greater freedom of speech even if you meant "liberal" in the political sense. Ironically that's probably one of the core tenants of political liberalism! By the way, the most liberal party here is in the centre politically, so it's very clear here that liberalness is not determined at all by left-rightness. I don't claim to know as much about the difference between Republicans and Democrats as Americans themselves, but I find it very surprising to think that Democrats would oppose freedom of speech particularly more strongly - I'd actually presume it to be the other way round (maybe based on my own conflation of "liberal" in the US sense and in the original political sense). With all that said, the way the original commenter referred to liberal as simply meaning "more ... use of law" is pretty hard for me to take seriously. Is apartheid more liberal than racial equality because it requires more laws? Come on. It comes off as an attempt to slander (ironically!) liberalism by claiming any bad law is liberal because liberalism uses laws.
    - wayneftw 6y ago
      In the US, Democrats/left/liberals are well known for trying to control speech. [0] [1] [2] They are the party of greater government and using law more liberally to control more aspects of society. Republicans/right/conservatives are the party of small government - hence the word conservative describing them. They favor free markets, which is to say: Don't make too many laws getting in the way of business! The very meaning of the word Conservatism is "commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation." [3] Less change = less laws. The conservative right weren't the ones behind the Civil Rights movement in the US - that was the liberal left, creating more laws controlling things like school segregation and so forth. So, I think you can see that "more (vs less) use of law" is absolutely one of the overarching themes at play in our political scene. Even as a complete layman who actively avoids politics I wasn't able to avoid this knowledge. I think you can confirm it with a few quick searches to get a feel for what kinds of things people have said about either party [4] [5] [6]. [0] https://www.americancommitment.org/content/democrats-repeal-first-amendment https://www.americancommitment.org/content/democrats-repeal-... [1] https://reason.com/2019/08/12/every-democrat-in-the-senate-supports-a-constitutional-amendment-that-would-radically-curtail-freedom-of-speech/ https://reason.com/2019/08/12/every-democrat-in-the-senate-s... [2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/legal-guidances-gender-identity-expression.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/legal-guidances-gender-id... [3] https://www.google.com/search?q=define+conservatism https://www.google.com/search?q=define+conservatism [4] https://www.google.com/search?q=democrats+against+freedom+of+speech https://www.google.com/search?q=democrats+against+freedom+of... [5] https://www.google.com/search?q=democrats+want+to+control+everything https://www.google.com/search?q=democrats+want+to+control+ev... [6] https://www.google.com/search?q=republicans+want+to+control+everything https://www.google.com/search?q=republicans+want+to+control+...
      - quietbritishjim 6y ago
        Those first two sources are obviously biased to an almost comical degree. They're very much of the "those horrible Democrats want to take your freedom of speech" bent. Your third link has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Yes, conservatives favour smaller government and fewer laws - actually that term means exactly that here in British politics too. But that doesn't mean any extra laws are necessarily liberal. Go back to my example of legislated racism to see that, which is clearly not liberal (in every sense of the word) despite requiring more laws and bigger government. Like the original comment I replied to, your comment and those sources come across a shallow attempt to insult Democrats by saying "look, this bad thing would require a law, and Democrats love laws, therefore they must want this bad thing!". Maybe in this case my distance, as an outside observer, is actually helpful. I can see pretty clearly that Democrats wanting to limit freedom of speech is a rumour that doesn't reflect what Democrats actually want.
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  While that's true (and I agree with your definition in the context, which is not political), the root of the misunderstanding is modern liberalism stealing the word from what is now known as classical liberalism
  - quietbritishjim 6y ago
    Even if I interpret it in a polical way, I would still take "more liberal" to mean "supports greater freedom of speech"; that's consistent with what you call classical liberalism. I hadn't heard of this "modern liberalism" until now, which seems to be an American term. But looking at the Wikipedia article [1] it doesn't seem to involve much discussion either way about freedom of speech, except to do with donations by corporations (it seems a stretch to connect that with willingness to legislate about libel). If anything, the other parts of that article still have a strong enough similarity to classical liberal principles that I would expect an American "modern" liberal to still be in favour of free speech. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States#Free_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_Unite...

Ah you mean liberal as in amount, not liberal as in more permissive. That was confusing, cheers.

> liberal would be more [use of law and government] That is not what liberal means. In fact the confusing setence in your previous comment has basically the opposite meaning than you meant: more liberal libel laws would be less strict.

wayneftw 6y ago
It wasn't my comment, but there is more than one meaning for the word liberal. [0] I was going with adjective 2. relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. I took "more liberal" to mean "more left" as in the political spectrum of Left vs Right, Liberal vs Conservative because that's the only definition that really fits the context of the sentence... Despite the fact that Liberalism has much more to do with Liberty than liberal use of government, Liberals today certainly want to use the government liberally to make new laws for solving any small discomfort. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=define+liberal https://www.google.com/search?q=define+liberal
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  Maybe there's partly a cultural difference. Here in the UK, "liberal" mean would still greater freedom of speech even if you meant "liberal" in the political sense. Ironically that's probably one of the core tenants of political liberalism! By the way, the most liberal party here is in the centre politically, so it's very clear here that liberalness is not determined at all by left-rightness. I don't claim to know as much about the difference between Republicans and Democrats as Americans themselves, but I find it very surprising to think that Democrats would oppose freedom of speech particularly more strongly - I'd actually presume it to be the other way round (maybe based on my own conflation of "liberal" in the US sense and in the original political sense). With all that said, the way the original commenter referred to liberal as simply meaning "more ... use of law" is pretty hard for me to take seriously. Is apartheid more liberal than racial equality because it requires more laws? Come on. It comes off as an attempt to slander (ironically!) liberalism by claiming any bad law is liberal because liberalism uses laws.
  - wayneftw 6y ago
    In the US, Democrats/left/liberals are well known for trying to control speech. [0] [1] [2] They are the party of greater government and using law more liberally to control more aspects of society. Republicans/right/conservatives are the party of small government - hence the word conservative describing them. They favor free markets, which is to say: Don't make too many laws getting in the way of business! The very meaning of the word Conservatism is "commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation." [3] Less change = less laws. The conservative right weren't the ones behind the Civil Rights movement in the US - that was the liberal left, creating more laws controlling things like school segregation and so forth. So, I think you can see that "more (vs less) use of law" is absolutely one of the overarching themes at play in our political scene. Even as a complete layman who actively avoids politics I wasn't able to avoid this knowledge. I think you can confirm it with a few quick searches to get a feel for what kinds of things people have said about either party [4] [5] [6]. [0] https://www.americancommitment.org/content/democrats-repeal-first-amendment https://www.americancommitment.org/content/democrats-repeal-... [1] https://reason.com/2019/08/12/every-democrat-in-the-senate-supports-a-constitutional-amendment-that-would-radically-curtail-freedom-of-speech/ https://reason.com/2019/08/12/every-democrat-in-the-senate-s... [2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/legal-guidances-gender-identity-expression.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/legal-guidances-gender-id... [3] https://www.google.com/search?q=define+conservatism https://www.google.com/search?q=define+conservatism [4] https://www.google.com/search?q=democrats+against+freedom+of+speech https://www.google.com/search?q=democrats+against+freedom+of... [5] https://www.google.com/search?q=democrats+want+to+control+everything https://www.google.com/search?q=democrats+want+to+control+ev... [6] https://www.google.com/search?q=republicans+want+to+control+everything https://www.google.com/search?q=republicans+want+to+control+...
    - quietbritishjim 6y ago
      Those first two sources are obviously biased to an almost comical degree. They're very much of the "those horrible Democrats want to take your freedom of speech" bent. Your third link has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Yes, conservatives favour smaller government and fewer laws - actually that term means exactly that here in British politics too. But that doesn't mean any extra laws are necessarily liberal. Go back to my example of legislated racism to see that, which is clearly not liberal (in every sense of the word) despite requiring more laws and bigger government. Like the original comment I replied to, your comment and those sources come across a shallow attempt to insult Democrats by saying "look, this bad thing would require a law, and Democrats love laws, therefore they must want this bad thing!". Maybe in this case my distance, as an outside observer, is actually helpful. I can see pretty clearly that Democrats wanting to limit freedom of speech is a rumour that doesn't reflect what Democrats actually want.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
While that's true (and I agree with your definition in the context, which is not political), the root of the misunderstanding is modern liberalism stealing the word from what is now known as classical liberalism
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  Even if I interpret it in a polical way, I would still take "more liberal" to mean "supports greater freedom of speech"; that's consistent with what you call classical liberalism. I hadn't heard of this "modern liberalism" until now, which seems to be an American term. But looking at the Wikipedia article [1] it doesn't seem to involve much discussion either way about freedom of speech, except to do with donations by corporations (it seems a stretch to connect that with willingness to legislate about libel). If anything, the other parts of that article still have a strong enough similarity to classical liberal principles that I would expect an American "modern" liberal to still be in favour of free speech. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States#Free_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_Unite...